The Gardener’s Song

I still remember the first time I heard you sing. The room went silent as you walked along the hollow floorboards of that creaking stage. The echo from the heels of your boots pacified the room as they powerfully walked up to the microphone. Your beautiful red hair trailed behind you. The room went dark, all but for a light shining over you, and I was transported into a universe where all that existed was us. You drew your breath in to begin to sing, and I uncontrollably drew mine in with yours. I was under your spell before any sound left your lips. And then you started singing with a voice so beautiful, and with so much pain that my heart ached, and my breath poured out in disbelief of what my ears were hearing, and my eyes began to cry without my permission.

When the song was over, you left the stage and walked towards me. As you drew ever closer, I died and was reborn thousand times over, but still, the knowledge of a thousand lifetimes was not enough to make me worthy of your presence. “Peach ice tea,” you said, “no ice.” And so, I obliged. I prepared your drink and when I handed it to you, our eyes met, and you saw all the pain that I had done so well to keep locked away in the pit of my soul, hidden behind this mask. I had never felt so vulnerable in all my life. I felt naked as if you ripped that mask off of my face and exposed all of my wounds.

You told me your name was Concetta. You asked me questions about myself, but I didn't open up and kept up my depressing aura. I wanted so badly to tell you of my passion, to tell you of my beautiful garden where flowers bloom in every colour you could imagine, where birds come to sing and let their guard down. I could tell that my guarded misery was heavy for you. If only I could show you how brightly I shine in that garden, surrounded by a million beautiful things if only you could see the warmth inside me. But I couldn’t show you that; If this sick world learned of my love, it would have surely wrapped its dirty hands around its neck and squeezed until it was crumbled beyond repair.

Over the next few weeks, you kept coming to sing, and I kept making you peached iced teas with no ice. We shared some words now and again; nothing more than pleasantries really. Then one night I told you of my garden, and my passion started to pour out in front of you, but I quickly remembered my place and withdrew myself. Forgive me, I was scared. I went home that night feeling foolish. For one brief moment in my pitiful life, I showed my vulnerability and I had never felt as scared, but somehow, with you, it felt safe. I slept in my garden that night regretting my hesitation, and I told myself that I would take off this mask for you the next time we met. But you never returned. But I never stopped waiting.

I grew a flower that is as unique and beautiful as you. Some petals are as red as your hair, and others as peach as your iced tea. I planned to give it to you the next time we would see each other, but I know now in my heart that we’ll never meet again. So, I called the flower Concetta, after you, and I tended to her every day.

I loved her and I wanted to protect her. At first, all the other flowers in my garden suddenly became completely ugly. I couldn't bear their hideous sight anymore. I was repulsed by them and wanted to rip them out of the earth with my bare hands, as it felt like a heinous crime just to let them live next to her. But then a presence came over me and showed me that destroying those poor flowers would have been wrong. I took another look at them and I could now see that, like me, they were just in pain, and now I could see a deeper beauty within them.

When she died I wept for a day. The next day, I felt just as sad, but I couldn’t physically cry anymore; the expression of my grief was limited by my mortal body. But a year later she came back to me, gracing my garden with her beauty once more.

And so, I have spent these passing years tending to my garden, daydreaming of you, hoping that you would appear to me and I could hear you sing again, but you don’t ever return, and this flower with your name appears to me as a consolation in your absence. I love that flower now as if it was you yourself, and when her season comes back around, I cherish every moment with her until she dies again. On cold nights I sit down in the garden next to her to share with her my warmth, and under the melancholic stars, I sing to her with sorrowing regret for what never was, pouring out over her all of my love to soothe her pain, and showing her who I am behind this mask.